The knives, which in known veneer peeling and slicing machines have stationary or move reciprocally, are relatively thick, wide, and heavy blades. Such knives are costly to maintain since a substantial amount of material has to be removed at each resharpening by expensive grinding. The setting of the knives, which is done by means of adjusting screws or babbitt casting is also time consuming. Furthermore, it is not economical to make heavy blades of better, wear resistant cutting materials, such as stainless steel 440C, and to apply advanced sharpening and coating technology to such blades.
A solution to the above problems is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,204,673 to Nordin. The solution is based on a design of thinner blade clamped with large force between two wedge shaped holders. The disadvantage of this approach is that large clamping forces are difficult to maintain constant along the length of the knife and warpage of the assembly is a common problem. Another disadvantage is that the clamping holder, due to a large included angle, obstructs the flow of veneer and therefore cannot be located close enough to the cutting edge. Thus, the thickness of the blade cannot be substantially reduced.